Ukiah City Council to discuss Community Services budget

The Ukiah City Council will discuss next year's budget for the city's Community Services department at a special meeting Wednesday.

Scheduled at 5 p.m., an hour before the council's regularly scheduled meeting, the workshop will address the department's "budget considerations" for the upcoming fiscal year.

At a workshop this week, the council discussed its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), which includes a "Special Projects Reserve Fund," that lists money for projects that hasn't been spent yet, such as $50,000 for the Todd Grove Picnic Area and $28,781 for the Vinewood Park Picnic Area.

"The public wants to know if those projects are ever going to materialize," asked resident Linda Sanders, and Mayor Doug Crane said it has yet "to be determined."

"In the past, the city has allocated funds for those projects," said City Manager Jane Chambers, explaining that the CIP is not up-to-date.

"The (projects) list is a bit stale," said Public Works Director Tim Eriksen. "Some of the questions (about the CIP) are do we want to keep the list populated? Does the council want to keep it updated?"

"It's a planning tool for day-to-day work as well, right?" Crane said, and Chambers said that "what we do day-to-day is what (staff and the council) talk about and what you approve."

Assistant City Manager Sage Sangiacomo described the CIP as a "rolling list," and that many of the items are placeholders.

"That's the purpose of a good CIP, to remind us of things that haven't been done," Chambers said. "My hope is to replace that list with a good CIP document.

"This is our first attempt to catalog everything we need to do, and if it occurs to you that we're missing something, we can add it," Chambers said. "This document does really need to become our budget document, (but) right now it's a placeholder."

The Community Services Workshop is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the council chambers at 300 Seminary Avenue.